Bush gambles speedy exit won't derail his re-election

The announcement of a firm date to create an interim Iraqi government and end the formal US occupation - though not the American military presence - promises the Iraqis the sovereignty they have clamoured for.

It also offers President George Bush the political symbol he needed: the beginnings of an exit strategy that he can explain to voters.

But the price of a speedy transfer of power, Bush's own top aides worry, may be a rapid loss of control over the drafting of a constitution, and the effort to make democracy flower in a land where it had never been cultivated.

Now that Bush himself has redefined America's mission in Iraq - from disarming Saddam Hussein to creating "a free and democratic society" that will be a model for the rest of the Middle East - any plan that grants Iraq its sovereignty before it adopts full-fledged democracy risks derailing that grander mission.

If the plan succeeds, Bush could declare an end to the formal US occupation of Iraq by the early northern summer, just as the presidential campaign heads into its final and decisive stretch.

But American officials expect that tens of thousands of allied troops will remain at the new government's "invitation," and nobody can predict whether they will still face a violent and deadly insurgency, possibly targeting Iraqi security forces as well.

That would make it harder for Bush to describe the transfer of power to a new government, and the withdrawal of US troops, as an unqualified success.

The combination of an intensifying insurgency and rapidly eroding Iraqi support for the US occupation left Bush few options but to loosen his grip over the country that he had conquered and is now trying to rebuild.

So in the past week, an administration that is loath to admit any doubts about the wisdom of its judgements basically rewrote its strategy.

Administration officials have dismissed critics who suggest that the process might be driven by Bush's electoral needs, taking pains to portray the new approach as Iraqi-born.

Yet until the past few weeks, Paul Bremer, the head of the US-led occupation authority, argued internally that the Iraqis were not ready to assume full authority.

The new strategy creates a government before the constitution. It turns power over to Iraqi leaders before there are national elections, and perhaps before it is clear that an interim government has established legitimacy.

Bush's aides insist that even after sovereignty passes to the provisional government, American influence will be strong.

But if there are lessons in the occupation so far, they are are this: It takes less planning to topple a dictator than to build a democracy. The invasion of Iraq was largely in the command of the invaders.

The building of a democratic government, by definition, is in the hands of the new electorate and subject to the disruptions of the Baathists and foreign groups whose campaign of terrorism has seemed to gain strength each month.